The review of iOS 14 widget apps: the better widgets for your iPhone

Adrionn
3 min readJan 12, 2021

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(Image from Widget+)

Now iOS 14 enables the ability to add “widgets” to your iPhone home screen, one of the best customizations for making your iPhone more like you.

This how widgets personalize your home screen: Showing your favorite information in a small instance (like clocks, calendars, tasks, photos, health) and keeping the information up-to-date, supporting three sizes layouts.

There’re some built-in widgets that iOS offers you clock widgets, calendar widgets, reminder widgets, weather widgets, health widgets, photo widgets, and so on.

But, third-party apps provide much more customizations, even changing the title layouts, background color, and background photos.

We’re going to go through some popular or potential third-party widget apps.

widget+ best widgets iOS 14
From widgetsmith

Widgetsmith

It is the most downloaded app so far; also, the earliest released widget app for personalization. So you could easily find out many articles mentioning it.

The app provides a large number of different layouts and features. However, the interfaces and the process are not user-friendly. Many users keep asking how to add and how to edit these widgets. It’s also why many articles guiding users to use.

To me, the widgets are not well-designed compared to other third-party apps.

Download Link

widget+ widgets best iOS 14
from widget+

Widget+

It’s a very new app on the market; I found out about widget+ because of the app store advertisement.

It grabbed my attention with cute themes of Christmas and doggy.

Widget+ offers not only widgets but also app icons and backgrounds, which are called “theme.”

Its widgets are all well-designed, including dark mode and colorful gradient themes. The themes’ layouts are all aesthetic and beautiful; maybe it is the most beautiful widget in the market.

However, I was quite confused at the beginning of the theme screen. It showed one and one full screen of the picture and didn’t tell me how to use it. It really takes time to try and error to figure out the answer.

On the first page, you will see many themes as the home screen screenshots, and pick a one to apply. It will download the related materials to your camera roll so that you could change icons and wallpapers from these downloaded pictures.

The second page includes all sizes and features, such as clock widgets, photo widgets, countdown widgets, and quote widgets.

Download Link

from color widget

Color widgets

The popularity of the app is second only to widgetsmith. The app was also released early and received many usages.

Unlike the simple style of widgetsmith, it provides many colorful and bright layouts for clocks, calendars, reminders, quotes, daily forecast, music, etc.

It s perhaps worth making the point that the setting process is easy to use! Choose the desired widget, and set it as “your widgets”; It will directly show up on the home screen’s widget panel.

Download Link

Colorful widgets

The name is similar to Color widget, but it provides more features, like icon packs and wallpapers.

The theme seems to be the killing feature that lists plenty of theme sets (Christmas, cyberpunk, comics, etc.)

The design of widgets and icons are chic, but it supports fewer layouts for the freemium.

Download Link

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